


Together At Last

by 3amscribbles



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M, also an awful lot of talk about sunshine, and a bit of fanfiction magic seeing as i hate realistic details, post-no return week, with no regards for upcoming spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 23:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8346841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amscribbles/pseuds/3amscribbles
Summary: “D’you reckon we’ll feel less like death if we get out of bed and start the day?” Aaron rasps out. The words scrape their heels against his vocal cords – nothing quite healed within him yet, though that heart of theirs seems quite pointed in its rhythm inside his chest. “I need a wash.”“You do. But you’re on bedrest.”“Oi,” Aaron bites back, heatless. Hopeless, really, with the way his breath sways from the wind of Robert’s fluttering eyelashes. “You could do with a shave.”





	

The sun is shining. Shining as though it’s already forgotten about the fateful morning it started off a few days ago; blinded by itself and casting oblivion through watchful curtains.

They’re thin curtains in here, in this room that isn’t Aaron’s anymore. A room that gained importance the minute it turned his to share – its contours bolder just like the beats of Aaron’s heart now that it belongs to two.

The room is golden these days. Molten flecks bouncing off of walls and sinking into skin and hair as though the glow is charged by Robert’s very existence in the middle of it. As though he’s a furnace to fuel the room and the heart and everything else he’s claimed since he moved in.

Robert wore sunlight and sleep the last time Aaron woke up to him in here, and the image – though normal these days – was enough to squeeze at Aaron’s lungs under the secretive dawn and its sunbeams. It made his breath stutter under the frantic scrambling of his heartbeat, and his smile was unabashed. He wore it openly, then. Grinned like a fool at what was his – at the half of his heart that was too lost in sleep on the other side of the bed to mock him for it.

The layer of sleep is missing, now. Isn’t present in bleary eyes or greedy fingers wrapped around Aaron’s body, but simply spelling out its absence in the circles beneath Robert’s searching gaze, and in the restless wanderings of those same fingers that are pressed to Aaron’s waist for assurance.

There is worry of the heart-stopping kind that hasn’t quite faded since they left the hospital, mixed with a spark of hopeful excitement that seems to sharpen little by little every time Aaron brushes that fourth finger along Robert’s jawline and reminds him that they’re here. Both of them. Still.

“D’you reckon we’ll feel less like death if we get out of bed and start the day?” Aaron rasps out. The words scrape their heels against his vocal cords – nothing quite healed within him yet, though that heart of theirs seems quite pointed in its rhythm inside his chest. “I need a wash.”

“You do. But you’re on bedrest.”

“ _Oi_ ,” Aaron bites back, heatless. _Hopeless_ , really, with the way his breath sways from the wind of Robert’s fluttering eyelashes. “You could do with a shave.”

He can feel the ghost of that unabashed grin making a comeback at the corners of his mouth when Robert smirks at his comment – amusement curling pleasantly in his stomach at the sound of the grumbles that roll beneath the scar on Robert’s chest as that faint spread of stubble is dragged across his own collarbone.

There are lips next, moving along that same collarbone while Robert’s nose dips into the hollow of his shoulder. Silent words of appreciation mouthed into skin that has finally gotten warm again, then a kiss pressed over the pulse point in his throat. A cheerful applause in veins beneath lips that are curving into an even wider smile.

Robert is strong, and safe, and here, closing his eyes in his own bubble of happiness while humming; “I’ll get us some toast, yeah? While you stay here.”

Aaron lets a noise rumble its way out of his throat, not entirely pleased, though not that appalled either, and says, “I’m surprised mum hasn’t brought anything up yet.”

“She probably thinks you’re sleeping,” Robert says, pressing another kiss to the base of Aaron’s throat before he pushes himself up on an elbow. “Or hopes that you are, at least.”

“Don’t,” Aaron starts, stops, breathes. “Don’t tell her I’m not. She doesn’t need more to worry about. She’ll try to make me take some of her pills and I just don’t…”

His voice dies out. Wheels losing ground, flying through air until they crash into lines of confliction on Robert’s face. The worry’s deeper now, with the sparkling excitement still fading in his eyes.

“I kind of want to do that myself,” he confesses, silent and golden and rich with however much Aaron’s trust is worth. “It kills me, seeing you like this, but it’s – I _know_. I know what it’s like, with the nightmares and the memories. The phantom pressure over your chest that doesn’t go away.”

Aaron swallows, and curls his shoulders up to his ears when he asks, “Is it – was it me, then, in your dreams?”

“You were… there. Not,” Robert ponders, “not shooting me, though. It was your hands on my chest. I could feel them every time I jerked awake, holding the seams together.”

“They were,” Aaron confirms, “on your chest. I was there, I – I tried to feel your heartbeat but my hands were shaking and there was so much _blood_ and I couldn’t – I was so scared that you’d –”

He can feel his fingers trembling with the torn-up memories now, his voice an earthquake to carry out the destruction of old wounds as their past threats of death pile up in their bedroom, in the middle of all that gold.

Robert’s still here, though, fuelling the sunshine with a soft look of contemplation as he moves Aaron’s hand to his chest. Skin against skin, and ring against scar, but mostly heartbeat against a grateful palm while they both breathe out the momentum.

“You never stopped,” is what Robert says eventually. It’s not the reassurance that Aaron would have gotten from anyone else, but it’s exactly what he needs – a thread to tie their past together, as well as an emphasis on where that past has taken them.

Aaron snorts, though it doesn’t come out mocking. Slides his hand up along the column of Robert’s throat, and then up along his jawline to cup his cheek before he leans in and kisses him. Mutters against curved lips that, “I might if you don’t actually shave soon.”

There’s leftover emotion in his voice; near-death experiences and threats of loss blending with the exhaustion in his bones to make the sarcasm lose its edge, but Robert doesn’t mention it. He rolls his eyes in response, though too fondly to send a particular message, then follows it up with another swift kiss and a roll of himself out of bed.

“Toast first,” he says, and a minute later he’s gone.

The sunshine remains in its oblivious perch upon walls and fabrics, but Aaron tugs the comforter tighter around himself at the loss of Robert’s body, his warmth and care that escaped down the stairs.

He aches, still, with memories and from injuries. From what could have been and from what actually happened; all those deep lines of sorrow on other people’s faces that are sharp like knifes within him when he thinks about any of it.

He can’t close his eyes at this time of day, with that sunlight dancing behind his eyelids to remind him of what that fateful morning gave him. The thorough joy that made his entire body shiver in the wake of Robert’s fingers, in that sleepy exploration they’d went on when Aaron’s gaze had weighed enough upon his skin to wake him up.

He can’t close his eyes and relive it, because it was all he saw in that water. Fading light from up above and the burn that his words left in his throat as he went under a final time, wondering where they went wrong, where they lost that morning and everything it had promised.

He pushes himself out of bed slowly, _so slowly_ , with the comforter wrapped around him like a cape and a shield all at once, though there’s nothing heroic about the way he feels.

A protective wrap around his heart, maybe, from Robert’s valiant care, but nothing else.

The bathtub is a whole other story, taunting him with its very existence where he stands upon unsympathetic linoleum. It looks like a trap and makes him dig his toes against that same floor with hopes that it will turn into springs and shoot him back into bed.

He hears the steps of the stairs creaking again, with a faint trail of voices following. Can somehow register it through the underwater sensations that press against his eardrums and make his eyes wet with panic.

There’s a comfort to that – to stairs. There are no stairs at the bottom of the ocean.

“Vic said that Adam’s dropping in later,” Robert says. His voice is soft, calm, gently paced in a way it wasn’t in dark shades of green and black and descent. “Aaron?”

Aaron blinks. He’s leant back against the sink, now, unaware of how that happened. “Vic’s here?”

“They’re having some sort of girl’s day in, from what I gathered,” Robert’s voice says, floating through doorways. It has an amused tone to it that fails to hide its concern. “Though I suspect it’s more of a barricade to make sure we stay in. Think they were planning our engagement party, actually.”

It cuts through the fog in Aaron’s mind – the carousel of muddled noises stopping with a clear image of his mum downstairs with plans piled up to her ears. He groans just as Robert finds him in the bathroom, and squirms under the frantic gaze that cuts through the space between them. Can’t stand the tint of fear in those eyes, or the fact that he caused it.

Robert stumbles closer, reaching an arm out to bridge the distance and bury his hand in the comforter. There is a relieved hitch to his breathing that neither of them will address, and an apology on Aaron’s tongue that won’t slip out into the air. He leans into the touch instead; compromises with an emphasis on their connection and the way it proves that they’re both still here.

“Did you even try to stop them?” he finds himself asking, swaying a little on the spot. His feet have felt round since he woke up in the hospital – the world tilted as though it needs to be shaken back into its place again, into its own order. Robert rearranges his arm around him, harbouring the seasick man within. “They’re probably elbows deep in decorations and sappy slideshows and – _wait_ , where’s Liv, then?”

He can feel his own eyebrows knit together – the tightness of his forehead where the skin is creasing in concern, because none of those things are things that speak to him, and Liv is her own being with the best parts of him echoed in sarcastic comments and she wouldn’t –

“Oh, she’s in on it, too,” Robert soothes, with understanding layering his voice as he brushes the thumb of his free hand over Aaron’s cheekbone. “I reckon it’s their way of coping with it all. Let them have their fun.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Aaron sighs. He manages to unwind a hand from his nest and presses a lazy finger to the centre of Robert’s chest in warning, mustering enough energy to frown as he looks up at his fiancé. “But it better not be over the top, or I’m out.”

Robert hums, non-committal and entirely placating while he squeezes the shape of Aaron’s arm through fabric and subtly steers him into movement.

“And you better get back to bed before I carry you myself,” he says. “You’re not supposed to be up.”

It’s a nice threat. Clear. Another breath of fresh air from a storage Robert seems to keep just for him. Aaron doesn’t even bother with an excuse for why he’s in here, or a stubborn assurance that he can take care of himself. He’s tired, and he drifted, and Robert is here to bring him in to the shore of his embrace.

“I need to wash up,” Aaron reminds him, though, when Robert’s easing him back into bed. “You said – “

“I say a lot of things,” Robert reminds him in a similar way. “What we need is for you to heal.”

He slides into bed after Aaron, folding long limbs in a catlike manner until he’s aligned with Aaron from shoulder to toes. His are warm; Aaron’s are not, still too stiff to wiggle and seizing up along with his feet and calves in the middle of the night when the memory of that captivating steering wheel overpowers all of his senses and erases the reality of Robert next to him.

Robert, there, warming the room up again with the soft smile he hides against Aaron’s temple while he distractedly tries to get the comforter around the both of them. His chest presses against Aaron’s side; firm and moving with distinct breaths, with huffs of agitation in the midst of his fight with stubborn fabrics, and Aaron closes his eyes to the sound. Savours it and puts it at the front of his mind as a defence against the inevitable rush of under-water memories that will come back.

They lay silent like that, with each other and the sunlight, and with a silence made up of faraway noises of fondness from downstairs that Aaron does his best to ignore. Robert’s chest shows further signs of life in response every time – shifts with silent amusement in reaction to Aaron’s glaring frustration while his hand wanders its quiet route along Aaron’s curves.

It traces lines, muscles, the knot of bone in a wrist and the shape of the ring on that finger, proprietary and smug in its brush over all the things that belongs to it while Robert keeps pressing grateful sighs to the side of Aaron’s head.

He adds a while later, in the scent of forgotten toast, “I think she just wants to see me drink out of a welly.”

Aaron doesn’t understand at first; finally warming up and sinking into the hollow sleepiness of his own bones in Robert’s safe embrace. He blinks again, furrows that brow and tilts his head back against the pillow to look up along the line of Robert’s nose to asks, “What?”

“Liv,” Robert says through a grin. It’s small and fond and beautiful, far better than the sunshine. “I think she’s just helping with the planning to make sure there’s a welly involved.”

It lights another little fire within Aaron, warm and gentle as it spreads through his veins with happiness, and with a sense of gratitude to still be alive and have this, this promise of a family. He aims that unabashed, stupid grin Robert’s way again, and enjoys the breathless sweep of eyelashes it earns him as he says, “Think we’d all pay to see that.”

The spark comes to life in Robert’s eye again, thrilled at the very sound of Aaron’s teasing tone. He leans in closer, into that gravitational pull between them with the sunbeams following to watch, and says, “Think you’d rather see me naked.”

Aaron pretends to think about it, squinting eyes under teasing eyebrows before shaking his head and saying, “Nope. No. Definitely want to see you drink out of an old shoe.”

Robert sighs out amusement across Aaron’s face, then leans in the final few inches to kiss his exasperation into the curve of Aaron’s mouth, and Aaron’s happy to welcome him down. He sneaks a hand around the back of Robert’s neck to keep him in place, and readily opens his mouth to Robert’s tongue, losing himself in the moment, in this breathlessness that is as good as drowning was bad.

His body does ache, though. Stitches and organs and skin that’s been through a storm and back, now carefully guided back into the mattress by Robert’s caring hands.

The sun, there, hovering over him the same way he did in that car.

Aaron settles in again, with his hand against Robert’s scar and Robert’s back on its route of assurance along Aaron’s own body. Takes in the room, the man, and that heart of his that is beating through all of it, and murmurs, “Can we – we should get thicker curtains.”

“Sure,” Robert hums, barely above a whisper against Aaron’s hair. He’s quiet for a moment; stretches that silence out long enough that Aaron’s eyes are beginning to droop when he finally adds, “We’re heading for winter, now. It’s gonna get darker in the mornings. It’ll be nice.”

It’s a sign of understanding, even though his words don’t say much at all. A reminder that they both were there that morning, in kiss-muddled affection and golden rays of appreciation, before they ended up in water that would have swallowed them both whole if it weren’t for Robert’s stupid, courageous heart and the way he’s exchanged most of it for Aaron’s.


End file.
